


How the Levee Breaks

by strangeallure



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Between TLJ and TROS, Between a Rock and a Hard Place, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Destiny, F/M, a little dark a little pretentious a little sad, between an MCR poster and a hot topic key chain, i'm adding cheeky tags to obfuscate the fact that this comes from my very sooouuul, just like me, kylo ren worries his pretty head, slice of emo, the dark side won't keep you warm at night
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-12 07:09:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28506489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangeallure/pseuds/strangeallure
Summary: That night in the white forest when she had scarred him, light cutting through the side of his face like a violent caress, forever marking the path of another’s hand that same day, it had felt right. Inevitable.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 6
Kudos: 16
Collections: My favorites





	How the Levee Breaks

He sleeps in his armor. Layers of leather and thick wool against ever-paling skin and too-cold flesh. No one ever told him this, but he knows it’s to stave off the rot. The price for using the real power of the Force.

The Jedi stay warm. Subservience and parlor tricks you get for free. True power, supremacy, demands sacrifice.

He saw it in Snoke, who was almost unrecognizable as a human being, distorted far beyond what could ever be natural again.

That night in the white forest when she had scarred him, light cutting through the side of his face like a violent caress, forever marking the path of another’s hand that same day, it had felt right. Inevitable. Another step in a descent that had started too long ago for him to remember its beginning.

For now, he’s still pallid where Snoke’s skin had all but putrefied. Their scars, however, are familiars, mirror images along a tilted axis. A glimpse of his fate and his destiny.

And in the throne room, she had helped him seize it. _She_ had helped _him._ Kylo Ren. Master of the Knights of Ren.

It infuriates him, fascinates him, tightens her inexplicable hold; shaking like a fist, banging against the cage of his ribs. That’s what he tells himself. The truth he dares not think is that it’s not a fist. It’s an open palm, a hand reaching out. After everything, after all he’s done, after all she’s seen him do.

The power of the Force dulls the pain, hides it away, but Rey slices him open, always slices him open, again and again, exposes his marrow to her touch. This nothing girl from a nothing planet. Anger has been the only emotion he’s indulged in for so long - fuel for his power and resolve -, but she promises the possibility of another way. The potential of something different, something more. Something he cannot allow and cannot kill.

 _Ben_ , she had called him, again and again, stubborn and immovable in her determination, her faith. Her Force sense pulsing through him like his own, but pure, untainted. Immaculate even after all her hardships. She had shared her truth with him, eyes shining. She had listened to him because she'd felt it, too, their bond. This ruinous, beautiful thing. And when he had reached out his hand, she'd almost, almost taken it.

He pulls his cloak tighter around himself in the dark, cataloging all the wounds his body can no longer feel, the price he’s paid in blood for a new legacy. Every single one a mark of failure, every single one a mark of survival.

He can’t allow himself to think it yet, but her survival might outweigh them all.

For now, he pretends that he might still sway her, that there might be another way, another end, but the truth has long since burrowed into his flesh, deep and insidious like shrapnel. She will need him. Rey will call to him with her warrior strength and her mighty heart, and he will break.

Her eyes on him, that’s how he will go.


End file.
